PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25214, 1 May 1943, Page 3

PASSING NOTES

The most insoluble of all post-war problems is, of course, not military, nor financial, nor even economic. If is the re-education of Germany, lest, she remain for generations a festering sore in the heart of Europe. About this problem least is said, because little that is reasonable can be said. Whatever discussion exists on the subject mostly takes the form of hopeless questions or grotesque suggestions. Shall we start with the German adult or the German youth? With the German youth. How shall we begin to re-educate the German youth? Answers one, “A drastic purge of educational personnel will be necessary/’ By whom? By English or American commissioners? Then every dismissed German teacher will feel himself a martvr and will be another festering sore. Martyrisation would similarly ensue if the purge were made by Germans. “ Every Nazi text book must be eliminated.” says another. But in what German text book—in arithmetic, chemistry, or physics—is Nazi doctrine not inculcated? Says yet another, “A teacher with a class of senior lads to instruct would help them to analyse that ill-written book (‘Mein Kampf’) till they perceived its insanity! ” Perhaps “Mein Kampf,” set as a compulsory examination text book to be learnt by heart, might produce the required revulsion.

At times the world’s supply of news, blowing in from N., E., W., S., seems sent out by a misogynist who loves to ruffle the halo rightly enveloping the feminine head. So it appeared last week. First came the stern warning of the Ministers of Supply and of Labour against post-Easter absenteeism. It-was the crime of crimes—frustration of the war effort, and an offence against the Emergency War Regulations. Result—in Wellington “practically all the post-Easter absentees were women in Dunedin “ girls were the chief offenders.” In Wellington, of 1476 employees of city firms engaged in essential undertakings, no fewer than 163, practically' all women, presumed on the immunity of their sex and passed the war by on the other side. What will the Ministers do about it? Will the Minister of Labour, who took lying down his flouting by the miners, now stand up to the slapping of his face by the women? In a Sydney message of Wednesday last appeared an ominous hint of the weapons which absentee women have at their disposal: “Women can think up half a dozen reasons for absenteeism straight off, while men usually can only frown and mutter when the foreman asks them why they took a day off.”

More about the strange war-time activities of women comes in another report from Sydney, where the Manpower Directorate has unearthed “ the most far-fetched example of feminine luxury spending of which it has ever heard.” This far-fetched luxury spending—which women no doubt consider to be “ far-fetching is the false-eye-lash trade. The Man-power Directorate is already taking a stern view of it.

To a beauty parlour in Sydney hundreds of women go each week for their eyelash treatment, booking four days ahead for their quota of lashes. The lashes are affixed for a charge of 4s 6d, the process taking about an hour. A hair is stuck to each of the customer's own lashes. After three weeks the artificial lashes begin to wilt and fall. But ‘‘ refills ” can be had at the cost of 2s a sitting.

To the Man-power Directorate of Sydney all this has come like a bolt from the blue. Where has it been living for the last ten years? Has it not heard of the many other things that go to the making of the New Woman? Of the artificial nails, coloured like the rose, which may be hooked on or off at will? Of the artificial denture that fits on the natural teeth without need of extraction? Of the lifting of faces and the reduction of nose-bridges? Of the ? But the paper shortage precludes further examples.

The African Hottentot, it is said, cannot count beyond three. Yet lie beats the Australian aborigine, who cannot count beyond two, anything higher being called simply “plenty.” Modern civilised man also has his limits of numerical comprehension or vision, beyond which numbers cease to have any meaning. German plunder of Europe, to the end of 1941, amounted to 36,000,000,000 dollars, and since that date the rate had increased. It is now running to tens of thousands of millions of dollars yearly. What mental picture do these gigantic sums call up? The British Chancellor of the Exchequer in his recent Budget figures dealt not in mere millions, but in thousands of them, expressed in print by a digit or two followed by a lefng comet’s tail of noughts. With an undying hate must a Treasury Accountant or a press linotypist view these eternal lines of infernal noughts, for the accidental omission or addition of a single one mav make a difference of golden millions. The time may be due for a new unit of money. “ Eillion ” will ,not do, for an English billion is a million millions. while an American or French “ billion ” is merely a thousand millions—a difference of 999 thousand millions. The unit £1 saves us from writing or printing 240 pennies. The old-time “pony” might be used for £looo—but for the fact that “pony” also means £25. The old term “plum” for £IOOO might be resuscitated. But the most suitable new unit would be a marigold, once a common term for a million pounds.

Easter-tide marks the date when cricket goes out and football comes in, as football has come in ever since Shakespeare's time and earlier. Shakespeare mentions football in King Lear, where Kent calls Oswald “ a base football player.” And in the Comedy of Errors, where Dromio of Ephesus says to Adriana: Am I so round with you and you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus? In Shakespeare’s day football ,was becoming more popular than archery and military drill, for there is on record the arrest of a man charged with abusing a constable, refusing to go to the Musters, and persuading others to go and see “ a football playe.” It was naturally frowned upon by the authorities. A Sessions Order quoted by a Shakesperean commentator says: Whereas great disorders do often happen with the streets and lanes near London by playing the football, the High and the Petty Constables shall repress and restrain all manner of football play in the said streets, and shall bring before the Justice all such persons as shall resist the execution of the order.

Ever since the days when Solomon bought his racehorses in Egypt for 3000 dollars apiece horse racing has been “the sport of kings.” It is now the most popular of all sports among the democracies, being two sports in one—the horse and the “ machine.” A beautiful mutuality reigns between the two, each contributing to the success of the other, and each to the other quite indispensable. A like mutuality prevails in their services to the English language. More quotations are incorporated into English from a few short paragraphs of a racing report than are supplied, space for space, by the books of the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, or the poems of Pope. We are “ given a straight tip right from the horse's rr.oulh.” but “we are jockeyed out of our money.” Our horse “has a walk-over,” “wins in a canter hands down,” was “in the running from start to finish,” while “-the rest were nowhere.” “ Neck and neck they ran,” and ended in a “ dead he&t.” We had “ a run for our money,” proving that “ the grey mare was the better horse.” And so on. So great a part does racing play in our language that life itself seems one vast allegory of which the race track is the reality. Civis.